Excuse me? You mean innocent male students, who would never dream of sexually assaulting a woman, somehow have a duty to stop sexual assault because . . . they happen to be male?But wait until you read his rationale.“'Let’s be honest, a lot of guys know when something might happen, that they have an awareness that someone in their group is predisposed to do something,' Sen. Casey told the audience of about 60. 'You need to be a man. You need to examine your conscience and ask yourself what your obligation is...what you can do to prevent this from happening.'"

Yes, let’s be honest, Senator. You're full of shit.

The premise is ludicrous. If it is true that "a lot of guys know when something might happen," the same is true for "a lot of women."

How is it that when it comes to sexual assault, college men suddenly become The Amazing Kreskin--able to read the minds of predators, but college women--so capable is every other sphere of their existence--are completely clueless and thoroughly helpless?

The reason Casey puts the onus on innocent young men is because it is verboten to ask innocent young women to take any precautions to safeguard their own well-beings when it comes to sexual assault--it is verboten to suggest that they should alter their behavior even a whit to avoid being raped. They can drink to unconsciousness in the bedrooms of men they don't know, even if this increases the statistical likelihood that they will be raped, because to counsel that they exercise even a modicum of common sense is "victim blaming."

Since we can't tell innocent young women to "be careful" without being accused of being "rape apologists," we must put the onus to keep women safe on innocent young men--who have far less ability to prevent young women from being raped than the young women who might be raped.Get it? Neither do I.

Let's get it straight. We empower our college-aged daughters by insisting they are powerless. We make women "strong" by telling them they are Disney damsels who deserve to rescued by campus Prince Charmings who must "man up" to protect Senator Casey's daughters.

Down, down, down the rabbit hole we tumble.

Sen. Casey called sexual assault a “betrayal that plays out not solely because of the perpetrator because the rest of us don’t do something about it.”

But Senator, by "the rest of us," who do you mean, specifically? If innocent people have a responsibility to prevent rape, does that include even the potential victims?

Of course it does, but he'll never say it, folks. It would be the end of his political career.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

I have been "ready" for a female president for as long as I can recall, but obviously the feminists aren't.

Gloria Steinem and Katie Couric dismissed the criticisms of Hillary Clinton as amounting to men being threatened by a powerful woman. You know, the usual. See here. Then Steinem pooh-poohed the Clinton email scandal (even though Clinton's previously hidden emails reveal that donors to the Clinton Foundation bought government access through their donations). Not surprisingly, Couric doesn't bother to challenge Steinem's assertions.

The comments come amidst a campaign where the male Republican nominee has been bombarded by unprecedented media hostility, not all of it self-inflicted.

Yet, any criticism of Mrs. Clinton is dismissed as sexism. Which means America isn't ready for a female president.

We can't be electing a president who is immune from criticism solely because of her genitalia. Legitimate criticism is legitimate criticism, not sexism, even though it's directed at a woman. A ten year old child knows that, but the people who dominate the political public discourse struggle with it.

Earlier in this campaign, Gloria Steinem said that young women were abandoning Hillary in favor of Bernie Sanders because--wait for it--young women want to follow the boys, and the boys were for Bernie. (I mean, with misogynists like that, who needs misogynists?)

We've previously shown that it's wholly unacceptable to talk about female candidates in gender terms but that female candidates do it all the time when it comes to their male opponents. The double-standard ought to be unacceptable, but of course it isn't.

When Senator Bernie Sanders called Hillary Clinton “unqualified” a few months ago, we were told he was speaking in "hidden codes" and launching a "gendered attack" on her by using a word that is a "subtle, pernicious form[ ] of sexism." It not only was unfair to Clinton's "impeccable resume," it served to do nothing less than "suppress women's political ambition." Women politicians, you see, are "more qualified" than male candidates based on their terms of political service, yet they face a constant struggle to prove their qualifications to others and themselves.

The charge is utter nonsense, of course. Numerous male Republican candidates have been attacked in this election cycle as unqualified and that's among the lesser charges. A lot of the attacks on male candidates have had gender undertones, but no one bothers to point that out. One (Ben Carson) was compared to a child molester--I don't see that happening to a female candidate; another (former Governor Jeb Bush) was continually branded as "low energy"; another (Marco Rubio) was ridiculed for sweating during a debate. One (Trump) was called a "draft dodger" for obtaining student deferrals during the Vietnam War. Is Hillary Clinton criticized for legally avoiding military service?

And while we're on the subject of her qualifications, is Clinton "qualified" to be president? Put aside the whole email scandal, the Benghazi lie, and the other-worldly fabrication about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire, Clinton's "qualifications" for being president are based on the fact that she was married to a once-popular president, then served an undistinguished stint in the Senate, and then was arguably a failure as Secretary of State (can you say "Russian reset"? "Arab Spring"?). One of her most fervent supporters, Sen. Diane Feinstein, couldn't name a signature accomplishment of Clinton's while she was in the U.S. Senate. The State Department's own spokeswoman couldn't name one tangible achievement of Clinton's as Secretary of State. Clinton herself had difficulty mounting a coherent response to a question about her accomplishments.

Yet if we bring that up, we're misogynists.

Which means we aren't ready for a female president unless we stop heeding the gender zealots.